Hope Preparatory School is a privately funded institution dedicated to preparing tomorrow's metahumans for whatever paths might lie ahead. With a tradition that stretches back over 60 years, a world-renowned faculty, and affiliations with all of the best universities, HPS is the place to send your child to prepare him or her for life.

The HPS Freshman Handbook provides the background material and character creation rules compatible with M&M 3rd Edition for Melior Via's line of Hope Prep Adventures, as well as plenty of information and adventure hooks to run a campaign set within a metahuman high school.

The first adventure in the series is expected to be available in April 2011.

Last edited by the_dunner on Mon Aug 19, 2013 3:27 pm, edited 8 times in total.

I am interested in this but the preview is too short. I would like at least one page with a character on it. I get what the product is but I would like a sample of the art and a character generated for the product.

Foreshadow wrote:I am interested in this but the preview is too short. I would like at least one page with a character on it. I get what the product is but I would like a sample of the art and a character generated for the product.

Hi, Foreshadow, Thanks for the feedback.

Character statistics are not a primary focus of this sourcebook. If that's what you're looking for, I'll be straightforward -- you don't want to buy it. Thank you for your interest and response, but this product doesn't really offer that.

You might be more interested in our scenarios when they become available, but the first one won't be releasing for a few more weeks.

The Freshman Handbook is primarily background material describing the setting and the student life and attitudes that go with it. It covers the history of the school, the freshman classes, the extracurriculars, and the cliques involved. I feel that the preview is a pretty strong indicator of that content, however, if you have a specific recommendation for what I should add to it, I'd be happy to try to address your concern.

All of the game materials provided here are in the last few pages of the book. It includes a few minor tweaks to character creation and game statistics for seven of the school's teachers. They make up a grand total of 7 pages of the book. (pp. 53-59) Again, those modifications and statistics are absolutely not the focus of the book. If that's what you're looking for, this is probably not the product for you.

In terms of artwork, Mike Munshaw posted a composite that shows six of the seven teacher pieces that he did to his deviantart page. Here's a direct link to those.

Thank you for the response, it was your response that convinced me to buy it as that other stuff you mentioned is what I was looking for. I like the characters and art but I plan on running a hero high type game (and will be using your product in addition to Hero High as a primary sourcebook) to set up the campaign. So all the details about classes, extracurricular, cliques are great and a big time saver.

That is what this product is, after looking it over, a big time saver for me. I liked the little notes you put in the book like its an actual freshman handbook someone wrote in. I like how you did the PL so it starts at 7 and then advances 1 by each year. Progress in the comics is slow and I like that as very fitting for the setting.

I plan on getting your little series of adventures too. I buy quite a few superlink and other pdfs and I can say I liked this one and unlike some others (who I won't mention) I don't feel I wasted 5 dollars or wish it was less money (well one can always hope for that but you did a nice job so I felt it was appropriately priced)

I didn't like the large black thick border on the pages with the teaching staff. If I print this it will SUCK DRY my black ink. If you can please change that and update the pdf, perhaps send out a notice to those who bought it as I didn't see a 'printer friendly version' with my downloaded link BUT that generally means a black and white copy and I like it in color but not with those particular pages. Other than those really large black ink sucking pages the rest is fine. I have a color laser so it won't be as bad but I have vivid memories of my color ink jet and how quick the cartridges can go.

The teachers in the back are done in a plain character write up, almost stat-block, approach, which is fine (not pretty but fine). It is readable and easy for me the GM to use which is all that matters.

I'd say this is a 4.5 out of 5 product (due to those large black pages with critical info about the teachers and the art so that I feel I would be forced to print them as I think they are hand outs and why the stats for the teachers are placed elsewhere in the product)

As a companion product with a source like Hero High this is a great product and like the Vigilance Press stuff I recently got (which is great for Golden Age games especially but not exclusively) I have to say I am loving the new superpowered stuff and looking forward to more (from the producer of this product and by others like Vigilance Press). This comes from someone who is picking about what pdf's they buy and vocal about when they don't live up to the standard.

Wow! Thanks for the very kind words. I'm thrilled you're impressed with the product. More importantly, I'm really glad that I failed to talk you out of buying it.

Regarding the white on black text -- I understand where you're coming from and I have an idea that I just haven't had a chance to try to implement. It's something I want to resolve when I get a chance to address any typos that folks catch. (It's been edited and proofread. No one has pointed additional ones out to me yet. But, there are always more typos.)

You may have noticed that the PDF uses layers. I put the character comments on a separate layer, so that if a GM wanted to, he could print out a copy without the comments to pass to players.

Similarly, the sidebars, page backgrounds, and the artwork are on other layers, so that if a person wants to save ink, he can turn those off prior to sending it to the printer.

The trick that I haven't done yet, and plan to is to put a layer with just the sidebar text and none of the sidebar graphic design beneath the sidebar on the same layer as the main body text. Then, if someone wants the content without the white on black text, it should become visible by turning off the sidebar layer. EDIT: This change has been implemented - see next post.

Last edited by the_dunner on Mon Mar 21, 2011 5:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

Alright, that was easier than I feared it would be. A revision of PDF with the option to have the sidebars appear as black text on a white background has now been uploaded to DriveThruRPG and a notification has been sent out to those who've already purchased.

The Freshman Character Pack provides a fully illustrated set of six PL7 characters for use with the Hope Prep adventures. For those who do not have an opportunity to create characters, these provide a variety of options with detailed backgrounds and personalities. The freshmen students could also be used add additional NPC students to a Hope Prep campaign, or even as a group of metahuman students on field trip for a more conventional supers campaign. A page of stand ups for the six characters are also included. This 20 letter-sized page PDF is priced at $2.99.

Hope Preparatory School is a privately funded institution dedicated to preparing tomorrow's metahumans for whatever paths might lie ahead. With a tradition that stretches back over 60 years, a world-renowned faculty, and affiliations with all of the best universities, HPS is the place to send your child to prepare him or her for life.

Event schedules for both Origins Game Fair (6/22/11-6/26/11) and Gen Con Indy (8/4/11-8/7/11) have been posted. Melior Via wil be running 8 tables of Hope Prep School scenarios at each of these conventions. Full details are on our web site and also listed within the event schedules for the respective cons.

This week, the paparazzi are giving an undue amount of attention to one of Hope Preparatory School's rivals. We want to take this opportunity to remind everyone in the HPS community, and the parents of potential students that we do not believe in sending our students out on the front lines to risk their lives. Instead, we focus on providing a solid education that prepares them for a life with metahuman talents.

As part of our "Open House" week, we are offering everyone a special 20% discount on all of our products. Please click the link below to see a list of available products.

Hope Preparatory School is a game setting for both the M&M 3rd Edition game system and ICONS. The Freshman Handbook provides an introduction to the school, syllabi for all the freshman classes, game statistics for the faculty, and character creation rules. The setting is supported by bi-monthly scenario releases. The first scenario, Orientation, is currently available for M&M3.

The Substitute is a scenario in the HPS Freshman Year story arc. It may be played as a standalone, or it may be used with first-year characters who are already established in the Hope Preparatory School setting. A map of the gym and a range of NPCs provide everything a gamemaster needs to run the scenario and experience a day in the life of a metahuman student.

This scenario also provides background and game information on Pryde Academy. This institute is an analog of Hope Prep from a parallel dimension. Dedicated to preparing its students for global domination, the Academy’s faculty has only recently discovered the HPS earth.

Yesterday something very exciting happened in the course of Melior Via's history. We have now sold enough copies of the Hope Preparatory School Freshman Handbook to cover our development costs. I guess since I'm admitting my excitement about this, it makes it pretty clear that none of our other products have gotten to that level of success yet, but the fact that one of them has is a major milestone for us.

So, we decided that we need to do something to celebrate the success. I realize that one sale just ended, but I think we can still launch another. For the next week, there is a Hope Preparatory School bundle available through DriveThruRPG. It's priced at $5.00 and includes the Freshman Handbook along with the introductory scenario - Orientation. That's like buying Orientation and getting the Handbook for just a penny!

This week is Gen Con - we look forward to a lot of great gaming at the show and hope to see folks who have enjoyed the Hope Prep setting. For those who can't attend, I hope you get a chance to get some games in at home.